What You Need to Know and Have Before Starting a Vlog

October 26, 2018

Are you excited to start your vlogging journey and make an impact online? Do you have something unique to say, share your thoughts and life? Before you grab your camera, start filming, and get on board, make sure you know what to know and have for laying a strong foundation to build on. This will set you on a path to roaring success with thousands of subscribers and views.

What to vlog about?

A great thing about vlogging is that you can express yourself in zillion ways. Even a vlogger saying a word or singing a song line 100,000 times nonstop can go viral. Anything that is fun to watch generally gets a lot of views and likes.

Unless your videos are educational or you have something specific in mind, you can mix a lot of different things along the way while not steering away a lot from your past videos. One way to do this is by vlogging about your life. This will cover a lot of ground. You can do travel vlogs, mukbangs, reviews, current events, tutorials etc.

In the first vlog, you can introduce yourself, tell about the plans for the channel and give a tour of your apartment or living space. It will give a hint of your personal vibe and makes you relatable and likable.

Here are some of the themes and topics you can pick from to get your vlog going:

Makeup

• Makeup tutorial

• Beauty product reviews

• Hair tutorial

• Shopping Haul

• Drugstore makeup

Relationship

• How we met

• Boyfriend/girlfriend does makeup

• Relationship advice

• Play a game

Family

• Parents Q&A

• Siblings Tag

• Couple fights

• Getting pregnant

• Getting married

Inspirational

• Trading

• Finishing school

• Managing budget

• Minimalism

• Personal struggles

• Life’s meaning

Travel

• Traveling on budget

• Travel tips

• Food

• Reviewing travel accessories

Audience

Once you know what your vlogs will be about, determine who will be your channel’s audience and their characteristics. Try to think and gather as many details as possible about your audience. Their age group, country, beliefs, culture, gender, ethnicity, interests, hobbies, what topics would they like etc.

More information on the audience you have, the better. It will help you to personalize your videos to trigger their senses- make them anxious, laugh, cry, use appropriate props, imaginations and effectively communicate with them.

Goals

Why do you even want to create a vlog? Honestly, it takes a lot of time and effort – film, edit, upload.

Ask yourself, are you talking up vlogging as a hobby, online career, to build confidence, express your ideas, kill anxiety, become an internet celebrity, build connections with other vloggers and audience or a combination of these. By having a clear goal, you can plan to grow your vlog channel.

How will your goal be realized?

Although your passion might drive you to create a few vlogs in the beginning, creating and uploading new videos thereafter is a challenge that needs to be addressed with a good action plan. You need to set different goals, plan steps to realize them and cross off each over time.

For example, you can set a goal to reach around 1000 subscribers in the next 3 months. This would need you to upload at least 30 good quality videos in that timeframe.

Video editing skills

To join the bandwagon of top YouTubers or vloggers, you will need to edit videos like the pros. The video editing game involves sticking to a good video editing software and rearranging the video shots to create an interesting transition among them.

Also, you can add title screens, transitions, and relevant music. YouTube has good video tutorials that will show you how to edit videos from start to finish.

Speaking in front of the camera

To feel natural in front of the camera takes time and doing it over and over again. But keeping certain things in mind and consistently following them can make the process much easy. These pointers can be simple as:

• Looking into the camera lens

• Choosing a comfortable and relevant outfit

• Keeping the throat hydrated

• Placing a mirror behind the camera to have a feedback on body language

Picking the right spot

The place you pick to record a video should complement the interest you are trying to create in the audience. If you are shooting indoors, choose a quiet place that has good lighting. In the outdoors, make sure that wind doesn’t cut down the loudness and quality of the voice.

Creating content that is new and current

Try to keep the information in the videos up-to-date and back it up with recent studies conducted in the niche or industry. Viewers expect to watch the latest, new and fresh content. So while choosing topics select those that will offer something new to your audience.

Gear

Image via TopTenGamer

Having and using good quality gear gives your videos the needed edge and increases your odds to become popular on YouTube. You need a high-resolution camera, a tripod, good lighting, appropriate background screen, USB microphone, a portable audio recorder, and easy to use editing software

We hope these tips have given you some ideas on how to approach vlogging, what you need to know and have to share your passion and experiences with the world.